Submitted by OPALCO.
There was a perfect storm of compounding factors that made our power bills very high this month. The power bills in January include power usage during a prolonged cold snap where temperatures dipped into the teens between Christmas and New Years. With home heating systems working hard to keep up with the weather, a couple of things happened: energy usage went up, doubling in many cases, and the demand for power exceeded the normal range resulting in steep demand charges (~$300k) from Bonneville Power Administration.
The way demand charges appear on your bill is in the Energy Charge Adjustment line item, which trues up revenue variances — mostly due to weather — each month. The ECA appears as a credit on your bill most months. In 2021, the ECA credited a net of $1,293,579 to members. The OPALCO budget on predicted revenue from the sale of energy is conservative, which mostly results in ECA credits.
After hearing from members who were concerned about their high bills and some discussion with board members, General Manager Foster Hildreth suggested adjusting the formula of the ECA to smooth out the bigger surcharges – and credits – that occur with anomalies in weather and therefore usage. “We can do better,” said Hildreth, “and listening to our membership is what makes our co-op better.”
Members can listen in on that discussion at the regular meeting of the Board via Zoom on Thursday, Feb. 17. Member comments and questions are taken at the beginning of each meeting.
Another factor contributing to this month’s high bill is the timing of the 2022 rate increase of 4%, and added an average of $4/mo (based on average residential usage). You can learn more about your household usage in SmartHub with detailed usage charts.
The Member Service Team is available by phone to help with payment plans and there are bill assistance programs available for members who are struggling to pay — this month or anytime. Project PAL provides a grant once each heating season of at least $150 to qualified members and the Energy Assistance Program provides a bill credit based on household size every month. Apply at www.opalco.com or at the resource center.
It’s a good time to get curious about where you could improve the efficiency of your home or business. OPALCO has rebates and on-bill financing to make your building more comfortable while saving money on energy spending. Get started with an energy audit: https://energysavings.opalco.com/energy-savings/measure-your-energy/home-snapshot-assessments/.
These high bills illustrate a flaw in how OPALCO — and most utilities — collect revenue: based on sales of energy (kWh). Currently, the service access charge ($50.35 residential) collects only 43% of fixed operational costs and the Co-op depends on the sale of energy to cover the rest of the cost of the electrical grid.
